Hundreds of coffins prepared as China realises scale of cruise ship tragedy

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jun/03/china-cruise-ship-coffins-yangtze-river-eastern-star

Version 0 of 1.

Undertakers at a small-town funeral parlour in central China are bracing themselves for the arrival of hundreds of corpses after the country’s worst shipping disaster since the 1940s.

More than 400 people are feared to have died when the Eastern Star cruise ship capsized on the Yangtze river during a rainstorm on Monday night. Officials raised the official death toll to 18 on Wednesday but said rescue teams were still hunting for survivors in and around the vessel’s upturned hull.

Related: Anger and resignation at scene of Chinese cruise ship sinking

With almost no underwater visibility, navy divers used their hands to feel their way through sections of the submerged vessel, Zhang Jianxin, a transport ministry official, told Chinese television.

“The whole nation is putting their hope on you,” Li Keqiang, the prime minister, told a group of divers, according to the China Daily newspaper. “You are brave enough to challenge the extremes.”

Of 456 people travelling on the Eastern Star, 14 people have been found alive, including the captain, a 65-year-old woman and a tour guide who survived 10 hours in the river despite being unable to swim.

However, 40 hours after the ship sank while travelling from Nanjing to Chongqing, hopes that others might be rescued were fading fast. “The chances are small,” said Shi Chengming, who was leading a team of civilian rescue workers from a Buddhist charity in Chongqing to the disaster site.

Instead, staff at the Rongcheng crematorium in Jianli – the town nearest to the wreckage – were preparing to receive the dead. Shen Yuanhai, the owner of a coffin factory in Henan province, said he had driven through the night in a convoy of four lorries, each stacked high with refrigerated caskets. “We have brought 200,” said Shen, whose factory is more than 400 miles from Jianli in the city of Zhengzhou.

After being unloaded by a forklift truck, the caskets, which have transparent, flower-covered lids, were packed side-to-side into four halls where wakes will be held over the coming days.

Xie Xuening, a coffin factory employee, said the scale of the loss had shocked him. “I feel upset,” he said. “It is a disaster.”

By Wednesday morning, the bodies of seven victims had arrived at the Rongcheng crematorium. Their identities were not immediately clear. A black-and-white noticeboard had been placed outside one of the halls for staff to record the names and ages of victims, alongside their photograph. The majority of the Eastern Star’s passengers were tourists aged between 50 and 80, state media has reported, although a three-year-old boy was also on board.

A funeral parlour employee, who declined to give his name, said staff were expecting the worst. “We’ve contacted all of the crematoriums around here so that if we don’t have room we can send the bodies there,” he said.

A doctor at the Jianli People’s hospital said his team was treating five survivors, two of whom were in intensive care. Asked if medics were expecting more survivors, the doctor, who asked not to be named, said: “We’re still waiting for information.”

As the families of Eastern Star passengers began arriving in Jianli, dozens of local women gathered at the Rongcheng Crematorium to watch the grim preparations. “I would tell the families not to be sad,” said Zou Jinlin, 40. “It was a natural disaster. It wasn’t human error.”

Additional reporting by Luna Lin.